


The Experiment

by bluebellsandcocklesshells



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, College AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:33:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6743170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebellsandcocklesshells/pseuds/bluebellsandcocklesshells





	1. Chapter 1

“Hello everyone, if you’d please take your seats…”  The professor waited for the room of about forty college aged Alphas, Betas, and Omegas to stop their chatter and pay attention to her.  “Yes.  Thank you all for coming to tonight’s informational meeting.  I’m Dr. Mills and I hope you all will be interested enough in tonight’s proposed experiment to participate.  And, yes, you will all be paid fifty dollars for participating, so now you can actually pay attention to what the experiment is rather than wondering about money.”

The group chuckled and Dean flicked his eyes up from his cell phone for a moment, but then returned to his game.  He didn’t care what they wanted him to do: pee in a cup, give blood, take weird experimental medications—he just wanted to get paid.  He would have signed up blind if he could have, but Charlie (a classmate in his Fluid Thermodynamics class and one of the students assisting with the project), who had told him about it said he had to attend the informational session.  Attend, not pay attention.  He’d confirmed there wouldn’t be a quiz at the end.

“Now, this experiment is about trying to identify if certain genetic markers affect what pheromones we find attractive and which ones we don’t.”

“Trying to crack the True Mates code?” someone called out.

The audience chuckled and the professor smiled.

“Now, we all know true mates are a fairy tale and sentimental movie fodder, but you have to admit that there are some scents you find attractive, some you have little reaction to, and some that can be repellant.  It’s kind of like there are people you scent and don’t mind hooking up with, but you can’t picture mating.  Right?”

“That’s just because all Alphas are commitment-phobes,” a voice said provocatively.

There was a mixture of laughing and grumbling.

“Hey,” someone replied.  “Betas are the coldest bitches I’ve ever interacted with.”

Argumentative conversation broke out in the room.  The professor waved her hands in the air.

“Settle down, settle down.  Behavioral science is run by Dr. Hanscum.  I’m sure she’ll be conducting an experiment in the spring and you all can go argue about which gender and sex combination are the biggest assholes with her.”

Everyone laughed and Dean cracked a smile.

“But tonight, we’re talking about  _attraction_  people.  What attracts you and what doesn’t.  What makes you picture a house and kids and what doesn’t.”  Dr. Mills smirked.  “What turns you on and what doesn’t.”

Most of the Alphas and a few Betas in the room let out obnoxious “Yeahs!” and laughed lasciviously.  Some of the Omegas rolled their eyes, but a few laughed nervously and excitedly with the remaining Betas.

“So, the science-y bit first.  We will need to draw some blood and would like permission to test your blood type and your designation type.  For those of you unaware—although seeing as how you’re all in college I hope that’s none of you—what gives you your ABO blood type is also linked to your ABO gender.  We’d like to find out if being marked double Alpha or double Omega has any effect on pheromone preference as opposed to those presented as Alphas with an Alpha/Beta combination.  And the same for Omegas.  Also, do A/B and O/B genders have a higher preference for Beta pheromones than double dominants?”

Someone raised their hand.

“Yes?”

“How come there are no people with Alpha/Omega combinations?”

“Ah, because they are both dominant alleles.  Unlike with blood, which displays co-dominance as the AB blood type, the alleles create a condition where the zygote self-aborts within a few days of fertilization.  This happens with some other genetic anomalies such as achondroplasia.  That’s dwarfism for you non-biology majors.”

“How will you determine what pheromones we like?” a kid asked.  “I mean, personality and looks play a role too.”

“Exactly.  So we’ll be eliminating those factors.  What we’re going to do is give everyone a new, clean T-shirt.  You’ll need to wear it for seventy-two hours, including sleeping in it.”

The crowd let out a soft, collective, “Eww.”

“You can’t have sex in it—you don’t want to mix someone else’s scent with yours.  It would be best if you didn’t hug anybody either. Feel free to exercise and get it sweaty though.”

“Bleh…” several people contributed to the conversation.

“We will anonymize the shirts and put them in plastic bags.  Then you will scent all of them and—”

“Oh gross!”

“No way!”

“Stick our noses all the way in the bag?!”

“Scent a stranger’s clothes in public?!”

“Let someone _smell us_!?”

“Yes, yes, to all of that, and then you will rank the smell on the level of appeal.  One being downright repulsive to ten being if I believed in true mates, it would be this.”

There was discussion and grumbling and excited chatter.  Dr. Mills tried to get everyone quiet again with not quite as much success.

“Just so you know, the scentings will be done privately and anonymously.  If you’re curious, at most we will tell you the sex and gender combination of your rankings if you want to know.  So, one vial of blood, three days in a T-shirt, and about ten minutes sniffing T-shirts—and you get fifty bucks and the chance to help us understand our biology better as a species.  If you’re interested, please fill out an information packet, schedule a time for us to take a blood sample, and of course, pick up your shirt.”

The group of students slowly got out their seats in the auditorium, talking with each other, some pretending they were hesitant with the idea, a couple leaving, but most, like Dean, were heading down to the front to sign up.

“So, when do we get the fifty bucks?” Dean asked as he scribbled down his info.

“After you’ve completed the shirt scentings,” Dr. Mills said.

“Cool.”

Dean scanned the sheet, making sure he wasn’t signing away his rights to the clones they were going to make of him, and then signed and dated the bottom.

“Oh, you forgot one,” Charlie said as she leaned next to him and pointed at the question asking if the subject wanted to know the sex/gender of the shirts they scented.

Dean waggled the pen in his hand.  “I don’t know, do I want to know the answer to that?”

“Could be interesting,” Charlie said.  “I mean, we can’t tell you the blood type or the gender markers.  That can only be released in group statistics in the paper in order to protect identities and personal information and blah blah blah. Since I’m not one of the ones organizing and blinding the shirt samples, I’m volunteering to do it too.  I think it’d be fun to find out what I find attractive.”

“I thought you were gay.  Like hardcore gay.  Same sex and same gender.”

“Well, Alpha ladies are the best.”

“Gross.”

“Really?  Not even women?”

“Alphas? Charlie, come on.  Alphas smell so…gross.”

“Well, _you_ do.”

“Whatever, dude.” Dean checked the “yes” box. “There.  Now we can get traumatized together.”

Charlie grinned. “Excellent.  Here’s your shirt.  Get it nice and stinky.”

“Always happy to prostitute myself for science.”

Charlie gave him a punch on the arm.  “Yeah! Science.”

It was a couple of weeks after the information session and Dean was at Milligan Hall, the biology building, ready to do his sniff test.  He’d given them blood and stunk up his white Hanes undershirt as best he could—with the guarantee that he hadn’t been in his rut for three days before or after it.  Now all he had to do was smell some dirty laundry and boom.  Fifty bucks.

Charlie greeted him in room 124 with a grin and a clipboard.  She also gave him a small jar of coffee beans that he could use to clear his nose in between T-shirt bags.

“So, you can take as long as you like.  There’s no time limit and you can go back and re-sniff bags if you want.”

Dean gave her a dubious look and she shrugged.

“We have to give everyone the same spiel.  So, sniff, rate, and then turn in your board.  We’ll give you a sheet with your results when you’re done.”

“And cash?”

“Yep.  Well, a check.  We have to keep track of it since it is grant money.”

“Right.  Have you done this yet?”

“Yep.”

“How was it?”

“I’m not gonna lie. It was gross.”

Dean laughed. “Awesome.”

“But it’s not terrible. It was like being at a club late, late into Saturday morning when everyone is sweaty and smelly and slightly sexed out.  Just, the smells are isolated instead of mixed together.”

“Hmm.”

“I mean, it’s possible you may really like one or two.  There were definitely a couple that I was like—bring it to Mama!”

Dean gave her a blank look.  “Never say that again.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. But seriously, when we’re done, we have to talk.  Because it got pretty interesting.”

“Okay, okay. Just let me get this over with. How many are there?”

“Uh…thirty-seven. Thirty-eight?  No, thirty-seven.  Thirty-eight total, but you don’t sniff your own.”

Dean sighed heavily. Charlie smiled and gave him a wave and then bounced out the door, shutting it behind her.  Dean looked at his clipboard.  There were two sheets of paper with thirty-seven numbers lining the left side and a series of numbers one to ten next to each number.  He looked at the long black-topped table. It was covered in thirty-seven gallon sized Ziploc bags with a white T-shirt scrunched up in it.  He found the one labeled number one, cracked it open, and stuck his nose right in it.

“Phew!” Dean said and jerked his head back.  That was ripe.  He carefully turned his head back toward the opening and gave it another sniff.  It smelled sweaty and a little stale and definitely like BO.  He couldn’t identify anything specific beyond loamy dirt.  Probably a Beta.  After jiggling the bag around and letting the smell waft up to his nostrils, he was able to get a proper smell rather just concentrated funk.  He wasn’t repulsed by the smell, but it certainly didn’t get his motor revving.  He gave it a five.

He moved methodically through the bags, happy that there weren’t any scents that he found downright repulsive, though a couple did earn a three.  He’d definitely smelled a sweet, honey Omega in one bag and ranked it an eight.  He kind of hoped he could find whoever it was because a date would not be unwelcome.

One smelled nice, really nice, but not in a sexy way.  The smell made him feel a little comforted, like it was familiar and reminded him of, well, home he supposed.  He wasn’t sure how to rank it.  He liked it better than almost every other scent, but he wasn’t really sexually attracted by the scent.  He reread the instructions at the top of the page.  It said to rank the smell based on how much he was “drawn” to it.  That didn’t necessarily mean sex.  So, he gave it an eight.

After going through all thirty-seven samples, he wrote his name on the paper and stuck the pencil under the clipboard clasp.  He paused on his way to the door.  He went back to get another sniff of number thirty-one.  It wasn’t the sweet Omega and it wasn’t the one that smelled like home. It was just some scent that….that he hadn’t identified immediately as something he liked, so he’d given it a six. Then he’d come back to it and smelled it again and given it a seven.  The third time he’d found himself inhaling the contents of the bag deeply—he was actually _scenting_ it like it was a human. He’d given it a nine.  Now, he wanted one more sniff before he left and he wanted to try to identify the smell.

His brain tried to supply him with words like ocean and sea, but it wasn’t very salty and it didn’t have that fishy or sandy smell beaches often had.  Then he tried lake.  Also deep water, but this time still and dark.  Yes. It smelled like a lake, although Dean was certain he’d never been around a body of water large enough to constitute a lake.  Even still, he had this bizarre vision of diving deep into a lake and swimming down deeper and deeper and deeper…

Dean opened his eyes and realized he was standing in the middle of a biology lab with his face pressed into a bag with someone’s stinky shirt—sporting a boner. Hunh.  He closed up the bag, erased his current ranking of number thirty-one and re-marked it as a ten, and then left the room.

Charlie was waiting for him outside and grinned as she took the clipboard.  “Did you smell your potential mate?”

“No.  But I think we should go on spring break to somewhere with a lake.”

“A lake?” Charlie asked, a little confused.  “Okay. Sure.  Let me go turn this in, get the key, and I’ll be right back!”

Dean leaned against the wall and made noises with his mouth while he waited.  He may have glanced back at the door once or twice, considering sneaking back in for another whiff of thirty-one.  And that was weird, right?

Charlie skipped back out of her professor’s office, waving a couple of papers around.  “Got it!  It’s really interesting, dude.  Like, you consistently rated Betas higher than like, Alphas or Omegas.”

“Really?  And hey.  I thought this was supposed to be confidential,” he said, snatching the papers out of her hands.

“I’ll share mine. What did you rank number three? I’m in love with three.”

“Uh…four.”

“Four?  Are you nuts?!”

“Well, Alpha female. So, no surprise I wasn’t into her. What about seventeen?  Yup, just like I thought: female Omega.  Oh she smelled sweet, like honey and candy.”

“Yeah, too cloying for me.  Not bad, but not something that would turn me on.”

Dean looked up twenty-nine, the one that smelled like home.  Beta female.  Maybe she had reminded him of his mother.

“So, I basically had Alpha females at the top of my list,” Charlie said, “and Omega males lowest. But you know what I ranked as number two?  And I like, _loved_ the smell?  A Beta male.  Can you believe it?”

“Was it twenty-nine?”

Charlie flipped through her pages.  No. Twenty-two.”

“Oh.  I gave that one a seven.  Maybe he just smells good in general.”

“So, what was your ten?”

“Hunh?”

“The professor said you ranked someone as a ten.  You’re the first to do so and like twenty-five others have already gone.”

“Really?  No one else put a ten?”

“There’ve been quite a few nines, but no one is willing to put down a ten.  It’s like that idea that there can always be something better, right?  So, what did you think couldn’t possibly be better?”

“Thirty-one.”

Charlie flipped through her pages.  She stifled a laugh.  “Oh, yeah?”

“What?”  Dean flipped to the second page.  There was thirty-one.  His deep, delicious lake.  Alpha male.  “No. No way!  They must have the key wrong!”

“I promise you we don’t.  Three people double checked everything.”

“Then I must have confused my numbers.”

“Really?” Charlie asked skeptically.

“Well…there has to be a mistake, Charlie.  This is an Alpha male.”

“So?  You liked his smell.  No big deal.  Alphas bond like brothers all the time.  It’s not like you were aroused by it.”

Dean blushed and looked away.

“Oh my God.”

“Shut up, Charlie!”

_“Oh my God!”_

“I’m leaving.”

“Wait, Dean, come on!”

Dean stormed out of the biology building.  This was bullshit.  He was a hot-blooded all-American Alpha male.  He didn’t get turned on by dudes in general and he certainly didn’t get turned on by Alphas.  Beta females? Yeah on occasion.  Omega males?  Some of them smelled good.  But an Alpha male?

Dean thought back to that scent—and all he wanted was to go back into the building and steal the shirt so he could sleep in it.

“Fuck,” Dean cursed and ran for his dorm room.  He needed a fix of some Slick Omega Beauties to set himself straight again.  And he wasn’t going to talk to Charlie for at least a month.

He talked to Charlie about two days later.  Well, she talked to him, and he kept eating his sandwich at the student union and let her.

“Seriously, dude, you should see the results.  I wish I could share them, but I can’t until the study is published.  Basically—I think it proves that scent isn’t such a strong indicator of mate selection as we thought, you know?  Like looks and personality probably pay a bigger role than we think because we’re all so wrapped up in the notion of scenting and recognizing emotions and the whole True Mate thing.”

“What’s your point?” Dean asked, crunching on a french fry with alacrity.

“My point is that you shouldn’t put so much stock in the fact that you liked the scent of an Alpha male.  It doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

“It does when you—” Dean dropped his voice and glanced around.  Then he leaned closer to Charlie.  “It does when it gives you a woody.”

“Y-yeah.  I suppose that’s true.”

“Even though you liked that Beta male’s scent, you weren’t turned on by it, were you?”

“Well…not really. But I did find it attractive.”

Dean waved her off.

“Oh, hey, though. I want to tell you something else and I’m being totally unprofessional and unethical and breaking moral codes and—”

“Charlie, like I give two shits, just tell me.”

“That disclaimer was for me, thank you.  Anyway, we noticed that there was one other person out of the thirty-eight who ranked someone’s scent as a ten.  And I just had this sneaking suspicion…so I peeked at the numbers.  I know your number because I saw Dr. Mills enter it into the system.”

“So unethical,” Dean mumbled around more sandwich.

“I know, I’m awful. But, listen to this.  Oh!  You gave me a five by the way, you dick.”

Dean shrugged.

“I gave you an eight.”

“Before or after you knew it was me?”

“Before.  But remember, I’m attracted to Alphas, so…but that’s gross. Let’s not think about it.  Anyway, this other person who ranked someone as a ten…he ranked _you_ as a ten.”

Dean stopped chewing for half a second, and then smiled.  “’Course.  I’m awesome.”

“Yeah, but guess what his number was?”

Dean shrugged.

Charlie gave him a look.  “Thirty-one, you nitwit.  You and this other guy both ranked each other as a ten.  Like, True Mate love this guy’s scent kind of ten.”

“I thought you said scent doesn’t really matter anyway.”

“It does when it’s a mutual ten!  We have to find this guy.  There were seventeen Alphas in the study, and twelve of them were males.  You’re one, which means there are only eleven others. All we have to do is track down these other eleven guys, let you take a sniff, and you might have found the love of your fucking life!”

Charlie shrank back and covered her mouth.  She rarely cursed and surprised herself when she did.

“Charlie, I don’t want to find this guy.  I’m not gay, and I don’t want to meet the guy that might be my exception, okay?”

“But, Dean—”

“Charlie, I said no. Besides, it’s wrong.  Science rules and whatever.  Ethics.”

Charlie sighed. “You’re right.  I’m sorry.”

“Okay then.  You going to the Pika party this weekend?”

“Pika?  Ugh, they are so gross.”

“But they throw good parties.”

Charlie looked like she was about to launch into a tirade about what sexist pigs they were, and then she shrugged.  “Yeah, okay. Might as well try it once.”

Dean was surprised. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“Cool.  We’ll have fun.  Promise.”

They did have fun, even though the Pikas were pigs and Charlie brought along some random friends from her LARP-ing group.  One was named Gadreel and he spoke in a funny manner that Dean was forced to listen to after Charlie abandoned them alone together for twenty excruciating minutes.

 The next time it was lunch with a “friend” from orchestra—even though she had never spoken about having friends in the orchestra before.  This was an Alpha named Victor.  He and Dean actually hit it off and made plans to shoot some hoops at the gym after their Thursday classes.  Charlie had been excited for the first thirty minutes after they had met, but then she’d calmed down and actually looked disappointed.

 Charlie introduced him to a random Alpha named Gordon at a mixer at her dorm.  He couldn’t stand the guy and had left the whole party after only ten minutes in his presence.  Then there had been Balthazar, Michael, and Andy.  Two dicks and a kind of nice guy.  Well, although Balthazar had been a dick, at least he’d been amusing.

 Dean prided himself on being somewhat intelligent, which was why he was embarrassed that it took him until meeting the seventh “random” friend that Charlie kept bringing to their outings that he figured out she’d been methodically introducing him to the eleven other Alpha males in the study.  The seventh guy was standing at the bar, waiting on their drinks.  He was tall and good looking, though he looked a little spacey.  Dean grabbed Charlie by the arm and hauled her closer.

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Do you?” she asked. “I was starting to wonder if you’d ever figure it out.”

“I told you I didn’t want to do this.”

“I know.  But I was curious.  Come on, there are only a few left.  Meet this guy, and if it’s not him, there’s only four more.  And hey, maybe you won’t smell him at all.  Maybe he let someone else wear his shirt or he faked the odor so he could get paid.”

Dean considered. “That’s possible.  It might be good to clear up this whole thing.  Maybe I’m not really attracted to an Alpha at all.”

“Maybe.  Oh, shh.  Here he comes.”

The guy walked up to their pub height table and set their beers down.  Charlie put a hand out toward Dean.

“Cas, this is Dean. He’s majoring in engineering, so we have some classes together.  Dean, this is Cas.  He’s majoring in biochemistry, so we have classes together.”

“Wait,” Cas said, his voice low and gravelly.  “You’re double majoring in engineering and biochemistry?”

“Yep!”

Cas looked at Dean. “She’s so perky about it.”

Dean grinned.  “I know.  I hate her.”

“Me too.”

“Well, aren’t you two just hitting it off great!  Jerky Alphas.”

“You’re an Alpha too, babe,” Dean said with an obnoxious nudge of his elbow to her shoulder.

“Ugh, don’t call me, babe.”

“You’re an Alpha?” Cas asked, sounding very surprised.

Dean stopped leaning on the table and stood up to his full height, putting him a couple of inches taller than Cas.  “Yeah, can’t you tell?”

“W-well…it’s just…your scent.  I can smell you and I…”

He trailed off and Dean cocked his head.  Then he leaned forward and scented the air near Cas.  He plunged into the cool, refreshing depths of that lake.  He opened his eyes and found himself looking into two eyes that were as deep and blue as that lake.

“Holy shit,” Dean whispered.

“Holy shit,” Cas echoed.

“Holy shit!” Charlie shouted.  “He’s the one!  You guys are mutual tens!”

Dean blushed and pulled back, and Cas looked at Charlie with a frown.

“What do you mean mutual tens?  Is this about that scent study?”

Charlie clapped her mouth shut and pulled back.

“I thought it was anonymous.”

“It was!” Charlie said. “It just…I mean, I…”

Charlie cut off as Dean walked around the table.  He saw her eyes widen as a look of despairing horror took over her features.  She probably thought Dean was going to stalk off and never talk to her again.  But all he was doing was getting himself closer to Cas.  He put himself right in the Alpha’s space and the man inhaled sharply, but didn’t step back.  Dean put one hand to the small of his back and leaned forward to scent his neck.

“Jesus,” Dean moaned.

“Forest,” Cas murmured softly.

They pulled back and looked each other in the eye, and then they moved at the same time, pressing a soft kiss to each other’s lips.  Dean pulled back quickly.

“’M not gay,” he mumbled.

“Okay,” Cas replied, sliding a hand into his hair and tilting his head to just the right angle so that he could seal their mouths together.

After a long, overly thorough kiss considering their current surroundings, Dean pulled back again.

“Maybe I’m a little gay.”

Cas grinned. “You wanna, um, go somewhere more private?  To talk. Or.  To um…”

“Sex, Cas.  We gonna go somewhere and screw and figure this Alpha on Alpha shit out in the morning.”

“Okay.”

Dean took Cas’ hand and started to lead him to the door.  He glanced back over his shoulder.

“Still mad at you, Charlie!”

“I expect the toast at your engagement party to feature me prominently!”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean had been awake for some time now.  The person in the bed next to him was still snoozing peacefully.  The deep, satiated sleep of a person who had experienced quite possibly a literally mind-meltingly good orgasm just a few short hours before.  Dean wasn’t trying to toot his own horn; it had been just as good for him.  After all, wasn’t that what sex was supposed to be like when one found the closest thing to a “true mate” a person could get on this planet?  And they hadn’t even had proper sex.  With the intercourse.  And the penetration.  It had just been hands and rubbing and a little lips and tongue.  Well, not on Dean’s part.  Ooooh-no.  His mouth had not gone anywhere near the guy’s junk.

And yeah…Dean Winchester, Macho Alpha Extraordinaire, had banged a guy with junk.  The same kind of junk he had.  He supposed it wasn’t the first time he’d worked with the same equipment before.  There was that Omega freshman year.  And that Omega during three summers of camp.  Plus the handjob he’d received from a Beta on a dare.  But…

Dean looked over at the man beside him.  The Alpha man.  He looked back at the ceiling.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

He knew the only reason he wasn’t having a full on freak out session was because Cas’ scent—that deep, dark water scent—the one that made him feel enveloped and controlled and safe (and so fucking horny, don’t even get him started)—was calming him and soothing him.  Running away from the scent, from Cas, was not an option.  So, he was going to have to work this shit out.

Okay.  So…he was more than half in love with a guy whose last name he didn’t even know yet, and half of that was due to scent compatibility alone.  No big deal.  A lot of people fell into scent love before falling in love with the person.  And it wasn’t even that he was male.  Penises were fun; God knows he enjoyed his own enough.  An Alpha…well…if the scent was not only not repulsive but attractive, then who cared about the knotty bits?

Dean snickered quietly to himself.   _Naughty knotty bits._

He put a hand to his head.  He wasn’t a homophobe.  He really didn’t care about the Alpha on Alpha stuff.  It was just that it was happening to _him_.  This was about his identity.  All his life, all nineteen years of it (well, six years anyway since he presented even though he’d known since he was about ten that he would be an Alpha thanks to genetic testing), he’d been attracted to Omegas.  Specifically, female Omegas.  A Beta female could be fun.  The curves of an Alpha female could even catch his attention.  But he never looked at a man, of any gender, and felt instant physical attraction.  After an Omega got close enough to smell, sure, but he’d never looked at a man and thought: “ _Yeah_.”

Dean turned his head and took in the shock of messy dark hair, straight nose, and limited view of lips and chin that he could see of his bed partner—fuck, his mate, really—and tried to ascertain what he thought of him.  He reached a hand up and pinched his nose closed.  Immediately his brain protested the deprivation, but he kept his mouth shut too and focused on Cas’ physical attributes.

He couldn’t see them now, but he remembered that Cas’ eyes were blue.  He remembered that because Cas had firmly held his gaze the entire time they’d touched and caressed and moved together.  His eyes were beautiful, and completely divorced from his status as a man, so adoring them had nothing to do with his ability to be attracted to the same sex.  Dean concentrated on his face.  He liked his face.  He didn’t know if he thought he was pretty, but he knew he loved it.

He released his nose and gasped in a breath.  There—that scent.  It wasn’t at all cloying or overpowering.  It was just there, like his own scent.  Like it had always been there and a part of his own scent, only meeting Cas in person had allowed him to pick it out.

It was so weird.

Cas stirred and Dean tensed up.  His mate grumbled and then propped himself up on his forearms.  He rubbed his eyes sleepily and then looked over at Dean.  He smiled softly.

“Hey,” Cas said and leaned over to give him a peck on the lips.

“What are we going to do about the knotty bits?” Dean blurted out.

Cas blinked several times, still not looking terribly awake.  “What?”

“We’re together.  Like, forever.  So, sex will be a thing.”

Cas stifled a yawn and nodded.  “Okay.  Sex will be a thing.  I’m down with that.”

“But like this?  Hands and humping?  For the rest of our lives?  I mean, I’m not going to say no to you blowing me again, and I can probably return the favor.  I mean, I did it once for an Omega.  But…what about the knotty bits?  Are we never supposed to knot again for the rest of our lives?”

Cas’ brow was drawn together in the look of a man not only confused by the conversation, but a not fully awake man confused by the topic dumped on him less than sixty seconds after waking up.

“Are you saying ‘knotty’ and not ‘naughty?’  You know what?  Never mind.  Dan, if you don’t want me to knot you, I won’t.  No big deal.”

“It’s Dean,” Dean said grumpily.

“What?”

“My name—the name of your _mate_ —is _Dean_.  Not Dan.”

“Oh.  Sorry.  Dean.  I like that better actually.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Cas shrugged.  “No problem.”  Then he grinned at Dean’s grouchily confused expression.  He leaned forward and pecked him on the lips again.  “What’s wrong?  Is it really the knotting thing?”

Dean looked away, too embarrassed to have this conversation and share his concerns.  He mumbled some words, but not even he was sure what he’d said.

“Dean,” Cas said, sitting up and stretching.  Dean turned his head enough to watch him do it, the warm morning sun giving his skin a golden glow.  “Did you not enjoy what we did last night?”

Dean scowled and looked away.  “I did.”

“Hmm.  So, you’re worried that one day it won’t be enough.  That one day you’ll cheat on me because you need to knot something?”

Dean shrugged, still refusing to look at him.

“Well, I might be open to the idea of letting you do that with me—”  Dean whipped his head around to look at Cas with wide eyes.  “But I can’t guarantee it.  I’m not sure it has much of an appeal for me.  Though, penetration isn’t necessarily something that has to be present for two people to be sexually compatible and satisfied.  I know a couple of Beta males who are dating and they never have penetrative intercourse.”

“Why do you know that?  Wait…I don’t wanna know.  And it’s different for Alphas; you know that.  I don’t want to…I could never hurt you.  But I might if I need something… _more_ someday.”

“Hmm.  Alright.  I propose an experiment then.”

“An experiment?”

“Yep.  Tonight we’ll go out and find an Omega so you can get laid.  You do it with her—or him—and then we’ll fool around.  And then you’ll be able to tell if being with me with just hands is better than knotting an Omega.  If I’m better, you’ll know you’ll never miss knotting.”

“Uh…that’s not true.  I’m sure the hand job with you will be better, that’s not a question.  The question is if in a year from now, or five or ten years, I’m restless and dissatisfied because I haven’t been able to…you know…lock the backdoor.”

Cas looked at him for a moment and then let out a snorting laugh.  He tried to school his features again.  “I’m sorry, did you say ‘lock the backdoor?’”

“What do you call it?” Dean asked defensively.

“Knotting, dude.”

“Fine, whatever.”

“Look, Dean, if you’re not worried about it being a problem now, why worry about it now?  We can cross that bridge, as they say, when we come to it.”

“But then it’ll be worse.  If we’re all fully in love and living together happily and then I hurt you like that.  Wouldn’t it be better to realize that no matter how incredible you smell, we should acknowledge we just don’t belong together?”

Cas was still for a moment, totally blank faced.  Dean was expecting his features to morph into hurt and anger, probably disappointment and regret too.  But he just smiled and shrugged.

“I can’t acknowledge that we don’t belong together.  Because we do.  And I would rather have as much happiness with you as I can now with the risk of some bad times possibly happening in the future, than to be miserable and alone knowing my mate is nearby and doesn’t…”  Now Cas’ smiled faltered.  “Doesn’t want me.  That’s what this is.  You don’t…you don’t feel what I do…”

Dean sat up quickly and grabbed Cas by the shoulders.  “Unh-uh.  No.  Not that.  Never that.  I want you.  Don’t doubt that.”

Cas smiled again and Dean relaxed.  That was a much better expression on his mate’s face.

“Okay.”  Cas slapped his hands on his thighs.  “Let’s find you an Omega then.”

“W-what?”  Dean asked, bewildered as Cas slid off the bed and began to hunt for his clothes on the floor.

“Well, not now, I’ve got a paper I need to get started on.  But, we’ll go out tonight and find someone.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Trust me, this experiment will work.”

“How?  We’ve known each other less than twenty-four hours.  I’m not exactly knot-deprived yet.”

“How long has it been since you last did it with an Omega?”

“Uh…”  Dean looked up as he searched through his memories.  “A few weeks, I guess?  The beginning of the semester I hooked up with a girl at a dorm mixer.”

“Okay.  So it’s been a little while then.  You normally start to get an itch about now, huh?”

Dean frowned and didn’t answer.  He’d actually gotten the itch to find someone only a few days later, but that desire had been tempered when he’d smelled a certain T-shirt in a plastic bag three weeks ago.  Cas took his silence for confirmation.

“So.  You’re feeling ready for a nice Omega to show your uppity little Alpha who’s really the boss.”

“Wha—hey!  I _am_ the boss!”

“Sure, babe.  The point is, you’re primed for it.  So, we’ll go find someone.  You’ll give it a whirl and then we’ll give it a counter-whirl, and voila!  You’ll know!”

“Cas, that’s ridiculous.  I don’t—”

“I’ll see you tonight!” Cas cut him off cheerily.  He walked out the door and to Dean it seemed like he slammed it a tish.

Well, damn.  He’d hurt Cas’ feelings.  Which was stupid.  He didn’t even want an Omega.  He just wanted to know what alternatives there were to never knotting his mate.  Now that he really thought about it, being with someone else was not a viable option.  So why hadn’t he said that to Cas?  He’d clear the whole thing up later.

~~~

“What about her?” Cas purred in his ear.

Dean closed his eyes and swallowed hard.  He’d been sporting a semi for an hour now and it had nothing to do with the heavy scent of aroused Omegas in the air.

“Dude.  I wouldn’t possibly know if I was attracted to one of them or not because you’ve got me completely keyed up.”

He heard Cas chuckle darkly in his ear.  “Yeah?”

Dean nodded, words failing him.

Cas moved so that he wasn’t completely behind Dean anymore, but his left arm was still draped heavily over his shoulders and his hand possessively enclosed around a pectoral muscle.  Dean turned his head to nose gently against Cas’ jaw, and to draw in that deep water scent.  That scent that was also dripping with thick sweetness—pride and possession.

“You do realize that every Omega that even glances this way gets scared off every time you glower in their direction,” Dean murmured.

“I don’t like the way they look at you,” Cas said, his voice impossibly lower and rougher.

“As an Alpha, I feel like I should be offended by all this jealous posturing.”

“But?”

“But it’s seriously turning me on.”

Cas laughed and leaned in close to kiss Dean’s cheek.

“Hey.”

The two Alphas looked up and spotted an Omega leaning on his forearms on the pub height table they were using as an ineffective screen for their wandering hands and inappropriate rubbing.

“Um, hey,” Dean said, his nose twitching in confusion at the sweetness of a willing, aroused Omega combined with an unpleasant sharpness he’d never associated with that smell before.

“So, usually when I have threesomes with Alphas it’s because the two Alphas can’t admit they really just want to get it on with each other.  You two don’t seem to have that problem, so it looks like this could go straight to the good stuff rather than spending half an hour wading through the bullshit ‘no homo, bro.’”

“Um…” Dean said, his eyes sweeping over the cute Omega and his well-toned arms.

“Oh, you’ve misunderstood,” Cas said.  “We’re just looking for him—”

“He’s the middle though,” the Omega said, pointing to Dean.

Dean flushed and was slightly irritated by the smirk on Cas’ face and the complete lack of change of arousal in his scent.

“I, uh…yeah.  I’m not really into the whole…”  Dean made a fist and placed it against the circle he’d made with his other fingers and made a popping noise.  “That’s not gonna happen.”

“Oh.  I assumed you’d be doing him anyway,” the Omega said, pointing to Cas.

Cas let out a small giggle that was edged with hysteria.  Dean was just confused.

“Wait.  If you thought I was going to be fucking Cas, and I’m in the middle—what are you doing?”

The Omega just smiled and raised an eyebrow at him.  The Omega’s meaning sunk in slowly, and then all at once.

“Oh.  Oh!”  Dean sucked in a breath.  “Whaaaaa?” he whispered, “Is that a thing?”

The Omega nodded and reached a hand toward Dean.  Cas’ hand came flying out of nowhere and pinned the Omega’s wrist to the table.

“ _That_.  Will definitely not happen.”

The Omega shrugged.  “Suit yourselves.  My offer still stands if you’re interested.”  He sauntered away, letting his hips sway and both Alphas couldn’t help but watch.

“You know…I never even considered a threesome,” Cas said.  “I supposed that could work, right?  If you ever felt the need to knot something, we could both do it together.”

Dean turned partially and put an arm around Cas’ waist.

“Would you kiss her?  Or him?  Would you scent her?  Taste him?”  Dean could hear the edge in his voice and sense the slight change in Cas’ scent as he became defensive in response.  And that tendril of Alpha machismo not only activated his natural instinct to snarl and start a fight, but damn it all if he wasn’t vibrating with desire.

Dean fisted his hands in Castiel’s shirt and shoved him against the wall behind them.  Cas did snarl then and balled his hands in Dean’s clothes as well.  They were pressed together, both bubbling with an undercurrent of fight and a confusing need to get some friction on their erections.

“This is so messed up,” Dean breathed, inching closer to Cas’ lips.

“You know what the problem is, don’t you?” Cas replied, just as breathily and gave Dean’s lips a quick kiss before pulling back.

“What?” Dean asked, but he didn’t really care about the conversation as he tried to make Cas kiss him again.

“It’s the third party.  We’re all but blood-mated, Dean.  You don’t let other people touch your mate.  That’s why we’re all riled up.  We don’t want to kill each other.  We want to kill that damn Omega.”

Dean managed to turn his head with Cas to look at the Omega who had solicited them.  He was chatting up some people at another table.

“That’s…really weird,” Dean said because it was well known that Omegas drew out protective instincts in Alphas.

“Yeah.”  Cas kissed Dean’s neck, his jaw, his lips.  He pulled back and moved his hands from Dean’s clothes to his face.  “Do you think you’ll ever need anything but me to keep you satisfied?”

Dean shook his head.  “I’m drowning in you.”

Cas’ brow creased a little in concern, though he was attempting a smile.  “Well, does it have to feel like dying?”

“Not dying,” Dean said, his brain still having trouble forming whole thoughts.  “You’re water.  A lake.  I feel safe when I’m…when it feels like I’m…in you.”  Dean made a frustrated, apologetic face.  “Sorry.  This isn’t coming out right.”

Cas smiled and his body relaxed against the wall, getting Dean’s to echo the movement.  “I think I get it.  When I’m with you, I feel like I’m lost in a forest.  But…not the ‘scared I’m going to die out here’ kind of lost, just…protected.”

“Yeah…”  Dean suddenly straightened and pulled back.  He adjusted his shirt and shook out his limbs.  That was getting awfully…Omega-y.  “Anyway.  So, you, uh, wanna head back to my dorm?  My roommate’s out for the night.”

“Sounds good,” Cas said with a knowing smirk.

“And _get to know each other_ ,” Dean said with a teasingly admonishing look.  “Such an Alpha cliché, Cas.”

“Castiel.  Novak.  Feel like you know me now?”

“Yup.  And maybe we can, uh,” Dean rubbed the back of his neck with a hand.  “Stop by a drug store, get some lube, see what, you know, maybe what happens.”

Cas nodded.  “I like this plan.  This experiment may have been a failure, but I’d love to try another one with you.”

Dean blushed and grumbled.  “Yeah, yeah.  Let’s go ‘experiment’ like a couple of college sophomores.”

“We are a couple of college sophomores.”

“Shut up,” Dean muttered and checked Cas into the wall when he moved to get his jacket.

“Whah!  Ass.  You trying to bring out my Alpha?” Cas said when he caught up to Dean’s side as they exited the student union.  “You get it too riled up and you may find yourself on the other side of the Alpha on Alpha knotting experiment.”

Dean flicked his eyes toward Cas, blushing hard, and didn’t answer.  Cas’ steps slowed with surprised realization.

“Oh.”


End file.
